


Constructed Hot

by neveralarch



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Age Play, Cold Construction (Transformers), M/M, Masturbation, Porn Watching, Sexual Roleplay, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, fantasized factory supervisor/newbuild basically, ghost bee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: Starscream has a closely-guarded, much-loved stash of contraband onlining porn. It's not Decepticon praxis, but it's his.Chapter 1: Starscream solo playChapter 2: Ghost Bee gets dragged in.
Relationships: Bumblebee/Starscream (Transformers), background Skywarp/Starscream/Thundercracker
Comments: 30
Kudos: 134
Collections: Kinks in the Wires (A free 18+ Transformers weird kinks fanzine)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one was originally written for Kinks in the Wires, a free digital transformers zine of weird kinks that you can read [right here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kitw/works/23966062%22)! It also features [this amazing illustration by YarAnrethe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23974159/chapters/57664834).
> 
> Chapter two is brand new and features Bumblebee/Starscream :)
> 
> This fic contains fantasized factory supervisor/newbuild, explicit sex, and brief mentions of implied assault. Please let me know if you need details.

First, before anything else, Starscream checked that his door was triple locked and encrypted. He checked that both Megatron and Soundwave were on shift. He checked that no spy cameras had made their nefarious way into his quarters.

What he was about to do wasn't _treason_ , exactly, but it wasn't praxis. It might even be list-worthy, if Megatron was in a particularly foul mood or needed a convenient excuse to find a new second-in-command. Loyal Decepticons didn't find pleasure in nostalgic fantasies of their own degradation.

Starscream's little library of onlining porn was undoubtedly a sign of his treacherous, deviant nature. Megatron would hate it, but he wouldn't be surprised. Starscream honestly dreaded the smug lecture about class-consciousness Megatron would give him more than the petty attentions of the DJD.

The smart thing to do would be to delete the videos. Instead Starscream settled into berth, wrapped a tarp over his wings, and booted up his vid screen.

He'd confiscated this vid from an Autobot prisoner years ago. An MTO with a yellow mask and incongruously flamboyant shoulder fins, like he thought standing out was a _good_ thing. Starscream had threatened him with execution for harboring Functionist propaganda, and the MTO had cried, there in his cell. _I just thought it was nice!_ he'd said. _I didn't know! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't know!_

Starscream had signed off on the prisoner exchange a few days later. He might be a treacherous deviant, but he paid the debts he could afford.

The vid was a bootleg of a bootleg, both the picture and the audio fuzzed with static. Starscream shivered a little as the opening titles flashed on the screen, jittery with both lingering paranoia and rising anticipation. 

_CONSTRUCTED HOT!_

_Featuring FLYBARR and GLAMSHAFT_

_A fantastical feature film by the perverted processors that brought you PROGRAMMED TO LUST and SOME (ASS)EMBLY REQUIRED_

The scene was a factory, oddly still, with one mech standing on the assembly line. Starscream sneered, as he always did, at the idea that mechs might be brought online one at a time. He'd woken with dozens other seekers, packed so close that their wings clanked together as they struggled for control of their freshly-made servos. 

But this was fantasy. Didn’t every constructed mech wish they’d had that moment of individual attention, that they’d been seen as someone special? Even Megatron knew that. There was a reason he liked to pick mechs out of the crowd and bring them to the front of the rally, back when there was still time for pretty speeches. 

The camera panned over the ‘newly-built’ mech, lingering the gleaming perfection of his armor. His fresh pale blue paint job called attention to his thick casting seams, and the camera devoured them, following one up his thigh until it hit a closed but inviting access panel. Starscream felt along his own seams, ground down until they were almost invisible unless you knew what you were looking for. 

The actor was a rotary, tall, with broad shoulders and two big optics in his soft, round face. Not really Starscream's type. He had a vid where the actor was a seeker, but it wasn't as good. He'd take a convincing performance over a pretty frame. It didn’t take _that_ much effort to imagine himse—a seeker in the rotary's place.

The rotary's optics lit up just as the camera reached his face, bright and shining with a surplus of energy. "Hello," he said. "Hello, hello, hello."

"Hello!" replied a cheery voice. A mech walked into frame, a little civilian build with the yellow hazard paint of a factory supervisor. "Oh, aren't you beautiful! So well made."

"Made. Made." The rotary rolled the sound over in his mouth, trying out different voices until he settled on one he liked. Sultry-sweet, with an unpolished Petrexian accent. "Made. Sir, what was I made for?"

Starscream remembered asking that question. It was hard-coded in as part of the onlining procedure, the beginning of the Functionist dialectic for cold constructs. He didn't actually remember what his supervisor had said—the flaw of the Functionist dialectic was that most new builds were too amazed by the process of _hearing words_ to really pay attention to what they meant.

But he'd watched this vid enough times to mouth along to what this fantasy of a supervisor said anyway.

"Sweetspark, you were made to be loved."

The rotary's optics widened. "Love? Sir, what is love?"

"That's a wonderful question." The supervisor smiled kindly and stepped right up to the assembly line, offering his hands up for the rotary to take. The rotary did, running his thick fingers over the supervisor's delicate plating and gasping a little at the sensation.

"Love," said the supervisor, as he guided the rotary off of the assembly line and onto the floor, "is a warm feeling in your spark. It's knowing that you're cared about and cared _for_ , that someone wants nothing more than for you to be happy."

The rotary touched the armor over his spark, his face half-awed, half-wondering. _Frag_ , the actor was good. He had to be at least five thousand when this was made, and he could still look like he was barely five minutes from manufacturing. "Sir," he said, "what is happy?"

"It's when you feel good, sweetspark." The supervisor held up a hand against the inevitable questions. "Don't worry, I'll show you. Now, we do have a procedure to go through. I have to test that everything's programmed just right."

Starscream remembered his own testing procedure as quick and impersonal. The supervisor had plugged a tester box into Starscream's circuits and watched as Starscream shuddered and jerked, all of his servos firing at once. Then he'd yanked the box out and moved on to the next seeker. Starscream had fallen over, one of his knees giving out as it fought a lingering spasm. No one had helped him up. The other newbuilds didn’t even understand what help meant.

In the other vid, the one Starscream didn't like but watched anyway, jaw clenched and something undefinable crawling along his cabling, the supervisor made the seeker beg to be tested, crawl on his knees and plead for the supervisor's jack. There was some backstory about seekers coming online already horny but not knowing what the feeling meant or what to do about it. Their sockets burning and clenching fitfully until they were claimed by a _real_ mech who would teach them what they were for. 

Starscream usually watched that vid with the sound off. The dialogue was just badly written, that was all. He might be treacherous and deviant but at least he had taste.

In this vid, the supervisor carefully reached out to touch the access panel on the rotary's side, watching the rotary's face for any sign of discomfort. He was so small, his helm just barely coming up to the rotary's chest. The rotary could have pushed him to his knees, if he wanted, forced the supervisor to recognize the superior strength of a mech made for flight.

There were vids of that, too. Much more common in the Decepticon army, because Megatron found them ideologically sound. They didn't make Starscream feel warm and hungry in the same way.

The rotary's engine purred as the supervisor stroked over the access panel, every time pressing gently at the catch until finally the panel popped open of its own accord.

"What's that?" asked the rotary, trying to twist to look at his own socket and retracted jack and almost incidentally displaying it for the camera.

"That's one of your data exchange ports, sweetspark," said the supervisor. "It's a very special part of your frame, and you should only share it with people who you trust. Do you trust me?"

"Of course, sir." The rotary's mouth twitched like he was trying to imitate the supervisor's smile. "You're going to show me how to feel good."

"Exactly, baby." The supervisor rubbed his thumb over the rotary's high-volume socket. "First things first, we've got to stretch this a little so my jack will fit."

Starscream opened the access panel on his inner thigh. This was so ridiculous. Why would you manufacture a frame with sockets that were too small to fit a standard jack? But he licked his fingers and followed along with the supervisor, fitting just the tip of one talon into his socket and easing it in and out, charge already snapping at the touch. The camera zoomed all the way in on the rotary's panel, the supervisor's hand contorted a little so you had a clear view of his finger getting a centimeter deeper every time he pushed back in. A thrumming bass line started up, underlying the rotary's shameless moans.

The supervisor added another finger. Starscream cut off his vocalizer as he did the same.

"Sir!" The camera pulled back to catch the rotary curling over the supervisor, his mouth open and panting. "Sir, I feel so hot, my spark is tingling! Is this a malfunction?"

"No," said the supervisor. "No, baby, no. This is _good_. This is what good feels like."

"Oh!" The rotary's hand hovered an inch away from the supervisor's shoulder, like he didn't know if he was allowed to touch. "I like feeling good. It's, it's—"

"It's going to get better," the supervisor promised. He had three fingers in the rotary now, the soft rubber rim of the socket stretching wide around his knuckles. "You're ready for my jack."

Starscream stilled with three of his own fingers buried in his thigh port. The supervisor's panel opened and of course he had a porn star jack, twice the size of any un-modded mech, with locking pins to hold the connector in place and a cable that was thick enough to carry a month's worth of charge.

Starscream's mouth watered. _Primus_ , he wanted to suck it, feel charge crackle over his tongue and conduct down his throat. In the other vid the supervisor did make the seeker suck his jack, get it all sloppy and wet while he taught the seeker how a forged mech expected to be serviced.

"Just hold still for me, sweetspark." The supervisor pulled his fingers out and smeared a bit of lubricant from the rotary's socket onto the prongs of his jack. "You can lean on me if you want, this is going to be intense."

The rotary collapsed gratefully onto the supervisor, making the supervisor laugh and stumble a little under his weight. He stroked the rotary's helm as he began to push into the rotary's socket. The rotary's rim stretched and stretched, swallowing the head of the jack before it locked in place.

Starscream scrabbled blindly at the tarp. He'd prepared this time, he hadn't forgotten, he'd—there! He snatched up his false jack from where he'd left it on the berth and almost shoved it inside his socket. It wasn't as big as the supervisor's and it didn't lock, but it felt _good_ , that was the important thing, thick and solid and Starscream _deserved_ to feel good. He deserved to be, to be lo—

"I'm gonna start the program, baby." The supervisor pressed a kiss to the rotary's neck. "You'll love this, I know you will."

Starscream flicked on the false jack's conductor at the same time as the supervisor initiated the data upload. His frame spasmed with the electricity as the rotary moaned, high and desperate, and Starscream bit down on his hand as he ruthlessly cut off his vocalizer again.

"Good, good, you're doing so well," said the supervisor. "All of your coding is responding just as it should. You're _perfect_."

"Th-thank you." The rotary's voice hiccupped as his optics almost strobed with excess charge. "Thank you, sir, thank you, I feel good!"

"I'm glad," said the supervisor. "That's another word for happy, sweetspark, it makes me happy when you feel good. We have another test to do, okay? We're gonna see if you can overload."

"What's an overload?" asked the rotary.

"Just a second and I'll show you," said the supervisor. "I'll show you as many times as you want."

The camera zoomed in on the rotary's socket, the soundtrack full of low-pitched crackling like you could _hear_ the electricity surge, ridiculous, Starscream leaned so close that his nose was almost brushing the screen and _wanted_. If only he'd had this, if only he'd had this instead of an orientation sim he hadn't watched and a job he hadn't understood, his first few months of life a blur of confusion and inadequacy until he'd just walked out of his barracks and onto the street. His supervisor had probably only noticed he was gone when the monthly report showed a small drop in productivity.

Starscream felt something hot and bitter welling in the back of his throat, but the camera was on the supervisor's face now, that soft, forged, civilian face with the kind optics and the gentle smile.

"Let go, baby," said the supervisor. "Just let the charge go. I'm here, I've got you."

The rotary overloaded with a wail, his mouth and optics wide, wide open, his back arching as he clutched at the supervisor's frame, hungry for contact, hungry for charge, Starscream _needed_ this and the false jack wasn't enough, he needed _someone_ —

He paused the vid and activated his comm. "Thundercracker." His voice was hoarse, and he had to clear his vocalizer twice. The false plug was still buzzing away in his thigh. The vidscreen was paused on a frame of the supervisor hugging the rotary tight. "Thundercracker!"

_"What?"_

"I need you to come to my quarters and plug into me."

There was a long, static-filled silence on the other end.

"I _said_ ," said Starscream, "I need you to come—"

_"Yeah, I heard you, I'm just trying to process. It's my off-shift, I'm in the middle of playing astro-chess with Skywarp."_

"He can come too," said Starscream, impatiently. "Now hurry up, I need to dump some charge."

_"Is that Screamer?"_ Skywarp's voice was just audible over the comm. _"What's going on?"_

_"It's just a socket call,"_ muttered Thundercracker. _"He's probably watching those vids again, he wants—"_

Starscream hung up. If Thundercracker and Skywarp knew what was good for them, they'd be at his door within ten minutes.

He wasted one or two of those minutes just looking at that still frame on the vidscreen, the way the supervisor tenderly held the rotary, the way the rotary instinctively clutched at the first mech he'd ever known. 

No wonder Megatron hated onlining porn. A Decepticon couldn’t, shouldn’t depend on anyone.

Starscream pinged Thundercracker with a reminder to _hurry up_ , then rewound the vid back to just before the newbuild opened his access panel.

He hit play.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Thanks to shapeofmetal, thundertitty, and thenightetc2 for helping me brainstorm Bumblebee's weird kink at one in the morning.)

Bumblebee didn't _mean_ to intrude. No more than he ever did. It was just hard to _avoid_ intruding when you were a weird spark ghost who pretty much everyone couldn’t even see. He'd been wandering around, feeling maudlin about how he couldn't talk to any of his old friends, couldn't even touch Ironhide's shoulder and let him know he was okay. He'd headed back to Starscream's rooms in a sulk, and walked through the door without knocking because he _couldn't_ knock, that was the problem.

Starscream was watching porn.

He had his back to the door and he was hunched over a muted vidscreen, but Bumblebee knew what porn looked like. This was hardcore slag too—a freshly-painted seeker on his knees on a factory floor, coolant leaking out of his shuttered optics as the mid-caste mech with the foreman's stripes stuck his jack in the seeker's mouth and pushed it in until the seeker choked.

"Wow," said Bumblebee. "You're into this stuff?"

Starscream actually shot up in the air, his thrusters sputtering and his wings flailing as he spun to face Bumblebee. He’d tucked the screen against his chest like he needed to protect it.

Bumblebee suppressed a laugh. It was so hard to catch Starscream off-guard—this must be Bumblebee’s reward for suffering through another boring, isolating day. "Never saw the appeal, myself," he said. "I thought it was just for forged mechs with an inferiority complex. But I guess it makes sense that you'd be into seekers.” Normally he’d leave it there, keep the rest of his thoughts to himself. But there was still a creeping melancholy in his circuits, and needling Starscream into a fight would be a good distraction. He tilted his helm, gave Starscream a smirk, and said “Just that vain, huh?"

“I’m not vain,” snapped Starscream. “I’m not even interested in the seeker, I—”

His mouth clamped shut, but it was too late—Bumblebee had a seam to pry at. "What, you're into the _foreman_?" 

Starscream was clearly trying to maintain a blank expression, but his optics were too wide and he was holding the datapad so tight that his finger joints were creaking. Jackpot. Another push and he’d be shrieking, and Bumblebee was much better at dealing with Starscream’s anger than he was at dealing with the inescapable realities of being a ghost.

Bumblebee considered his best angle of attack. He’d seen a couple factory vids before—they were hard to avoid when you were a horny young mech, looking for porn clips on the swap-net. They all went about the same way, too. Innocent newbuild, lecherous supervisor, the cables came out and… "You wanna be told you're a bad, bad mech, Screamer?"

Starscream didn’t say anything. Speechless, huh? That was a first. 

"Made to service real mechs," Bumblebee said, half-remembering a line he'd winced at when it popped up in a clip. "Just a shoddy knock-off—at least your ports still work."

Starscream started to puff up, his wings broadening into a threat display. Bumblebee snorted. What was left of him to threaten? Starscream should know that—he was always putting Bumblebee down, ignoring his advice, telling him he didn't even exist. Sometimes Bumblebee almost believed him. Bumblebee might as well _not_ exist unless Starscream deigned to perceive him.

"I'm just a hallucination, right?" said Bumblebee, vindictively. "Hey, you think that's why you're hallucinating me? You dreamt up a little mid-caste mech because you always wanted to beg one of us for a jacking?"

Starscream looked at him like he wasn't even worth disgust, as if he was a bit or organic muck stuck to Starscream's thruster.

"Here's your chance." Bumblebee spread his arms. "Don't worry, I won't make you crawl for me. I bet your knees won't even bend that way, it's been so long since you hit the factory floor."

"Get out," said Starscream.

"Yeah, yeah," said Bumblebee. Here it came. They’d fight, Bumblebee would feel worse and better at the same time, rinse and repeat tomorrow. "You’re not interested in my tiny jack, I got it—"

"Get out!" shrieked Starscream, loud enough to wake the dead. Bumblebee startled back on instinct, and kept pedaling as Starscream advanced, still yelling, optics blazing, practically foaming at the mouth. This wasn’t a petty anger, this was _murder_. Bumblebee forgot that he was immune. He phased through the door at a run and allowed to a stop in the suddenly busy and brightly-lit corridor. There were guards everywhere, drawn by the shrieking that was still audible through the door.

Bumblebee’s hands were shaking.

One hapless guard dared to knock. "Lord Starscream?" he called. "Are you all right?"

There was a smashing sound, then silence. It stretched on long enough that some of the guards started glancing at the triple-encoded door lock. Bumblebee wondered if Starscream's paranoia allowed anyone to have emergency overrides.

Silence... it wasn't quite silence, though, was it? Bumblebee was sure he could hear a small, hitching, gasping noise. Like someone trying to pull in air through blocked vents.

"I'm fine," called Starscream, at last. "Go back to your duties."

\---

Bumblebee was aware that he'd fragged up. Taken things too far, let his mouth run ahead of his processor, relied on Starscream’s untouchable ego to cushion his worst barbs. He wanted badly to talk to someone—to deconstruct where exactly he'd gone wrong and think about how to do better. The problem was that there was only one mech in the galaxy who could actually hear or see Bumblebee. 

And Starscream was giving him the silent treatment.

"I'm sorry," said Bumblebee, for the three hundredth time.

Starscream scrolled down in his datapad. His office was empty, he _could_ talk to Bumblebee without fear of his scant allies or his numerous enemies seeing. He just chose not to, as he'd been choosing not to all day.

"I thought it was just teasing," said Bumblebee. "You call me names all the time—remember the poem you wrote about what a terrible leader I was?"

The corner of Starscream's mouth twitched up.

"Everybody has that weird porn thing they like," said Bumblebee. "I didn't think I'd hit a nerve."

Starscream's mouth twitched back down again. Oh, Primus. Bumblebee was going to have to take drastic measures.

"You don't have anything to feel insecure about," he said, as sincerely as he could manage. "You're gorgeous, a genius, the literal ruler of Cybertron. You could have any mech with a snap of your fingers. Your taste in reframes is impeccable—"

"Stop it," said Starscream. _Words_. Bumblebee never thought he’d be so happy to hear Starscream’s voice.

"I love your wings," said Bumblebee, unwilling to give up a winning tactic.

"Stop it," said Starscream, more firmly. His clawtips traced the surface of the desk. "What's your weird porn thing?"

"Sorry?"

"Your weird porn thing," said Starscream, impatiently. " _Everybody_ has one."

Bumblebee's processor went blank.

"Nothing?" needled Starscream. "How very Autobot of you. Stolid, good, entirely devoid of original thought—"

"Tanks," blurted Bumblebee.

Starscream stopped, mid-ironic gesture. "What?"

"I watched tank vids," said Bumblebee. "Especially the ones where a minibot gets up in their gears and, you know."

"No, I don't know," said Starscream. "I don't watch _minibot softcore_."

"It's not softcore!" Bumblebee felt weirdly defensive of his own taste. "You can see all of their wiring as they get tickled!"

" _Tickled_." Starscream was practically grinning now. "Primus. I wish I knew where Tarn was, I'd love to tell him all about your tank tickling fetish. The list isn't for Autobots, but I'm sure he'd make an exception for you."

"Har har," said Bumblebee, and then, because he actually physically _needed_ to explain himself, "see? Isn't this fun? Teasing each other about our kinks?"

Starscream nearly shut down on him again. His wings dropped, his lips thinned, his hands gripped the edge of the desk. Bumblebee cursed himself and started thinking of new compliments he could use to try and buy his way back in. But then:

"I don't like the degradation," said Starscream, his voice harsh and a little clipped.

"Oh," said Bumblebee. "But aren't all of those factory vids—"

"Not all of them." Starscream seemed to be looking right through Bumblebee—not over his helm, but actually at the wall behind Bumblebee. "Sometimes they're. Nicer."

Nice porn involving the simulated abuse of a newbuild by an authority figure? The skepticism must have shown on Bumblebee's face, because Starscream's optics suddenly narrowed back into focus.

"They're affirming," he snapped. "A forged mech like you wouldn't understand."

"Yeah, okay," said Bumblebee. “I guess I don’t.” 

Starscream made a dismissive gesture and went back to his datapad. Bumblebee stared at his hands for a little while, feeling like there was grit in his mechanisms even though there couldn’t be, probably never would be again.

“Hey,” he said, when he couldn’t bear it any longer. “Maybe you could show me?"

“Show you what?” Starscream didn’t look up.

“The affirming porn,” said Bumblebee. “Like you said. The nice stuff.”

That caught Starscream’s attention. He looked at Bumblebee for a long moment, his talons clacking on the datapad and his mouth pulled tight.

“Fine,” Starscream decided. “I got it from an Autobot anyway. I suppose it’s only fair to let you see.”

“You got _factory porn_ from an _Autobot_ —”

“Hush,” said Starscream, though there was a smile on his faceplate again. “I’m trying to work.”

\---

"Sweetspark," said the tinny voice of the little yellow supervisor on the vid screen, "you were made to be loved."

"Huh," said Bumblebee.

Starscream scowled and flicked the screen off. " _You_ asked. I _said_ you wouldn't understand."

"I didn't even say anything!" Bumblebee tried to turn the screen back on, but of course his hands went right through it. "Come on, let me watch."

It took a little more persuading to get Starscream to agree—Bumblebee could tell that Starscream enjoyed listening to him beg to see Starscream's secret porn stash. But eventually Bumblebee was watching what was surely the most tender factory frag vid to ever exist.

He glanced at Starscream and for a moment he could swear that Starscream was mouthing along to the supervisor's lines. Then Starscream clamped his mouth shut, his biolights flushing.

"So," said Bumblebee, carefully, "it's the praise? That's what does it for you?"

"It's," said Starscream. "It's, it's the."

Bumblebee watched Starscream struggle for a few more moments. On the screen, the supervisor was coaxing open the pseudo-newbuild's socket. Starscream lapsed into silence.

The yellow on the supervisor’s frame was starting to get to Bumblebee. Yeah, it was standard hazard paint. But he kept catching it out of the corner of his optic and thinking he was seeing his own reflection. He didn’t actually have a reflection, anymore. 

"I think I could've done this," said Bumblebee, hoping that a bit of humor would erase his discomfort. "I got the right frame, right? It doesn't seem like they care if the supervisor's hot or anything."

"He's hot," said Starscream, with much less thought than he'd apparently needed for failing to explain his kinks. His optics flicked over Bumblebee. "You're not... unattractive. When you’re not being insulting or tiresome."

"Me?" Bumblebee laughed. "Come on, I'm not anything special. Would you really get revved up if I called you a sweet little jet and asked you to run a take-off sequence for me?"

There was just the barest noise from Starscream's engine. Bumblebee almost could've imagined it, if it wasn't for the look on Starscream's face. The way his optics darted between the supervisor on the screen and Bumblebee in front of him, like he noticed the similarities too.

"Oh," said Bumblebee. " _Oh_."

\---

They had to talk about it first. It took hours, because Bumblebee didn’t know the right words and Starscream didn’t want to say them. But in the end Starscream blocked out a free evening where they could go to Starscream quarters, and Bumblebee could say:

"Hello, beautiful. What's your name?"

Starscream, sitting on the floor with his legs sprawled, looked up at him with wide optics. It was unfair that he could look so innocent even when Bumblebee knew him almost spark-deep. He didn’t look anything like a freshly-minted seeker, with his fancy custom frame and the lines of exhaustion here and there on his face plate. But those optics…

"Not sure about the name yet?" Bumblebee smiled and bent a little so his head was level with Starscream's. "That's okay. You can tell me whenever you've picked one."

"Got a serial number," mumbled Starscream. "Five seven one three—"

"That's not the same as a name, hon," said Bumblebee. "A name is about who you are, not what you were made for."

"Oh." Starscream frowned. "Who am I?"

"You're my sweet little jet," said Bumblebee, warmly. "Now, I'm here to test your take-off sequence. Have you done any flying yet?"

"No," said Starscream, but his optics darted away.

"You can tell me," said Bumblebee. "I won't get you in trouble, I just want to know."

Starscream squirmed for a moment, his mouth twisting. "Yeah," he said, at last. "Last night after the supervisors went home. Some of us wanted to try and touch the lights in the ceiling. But I crashed."

"Oh, darling, that shouldn't have happened." Every time Bumblebee said something new, he felt like he was laying it on too thick—but Starscream had been more insistent about the pet names than anything else. "There might be something wrong with your thrusters."

Starscream shriveled, his arms curling around his knees as he sunk deeper into character. "I'm defective?"

"Not defective, sweetspark, just—"

"Are you going to scrap me?" whispered Starscream.

Oh, it hurt to hear him say it like that. Scared, but matter of fact. Bumblebee had been frightened of getting slagged, from time to time, but he’d never worried about simply being discarded.

"No one's going to scrap you," said Bumblebee, firmly. "I'll check your hardware, and then we're going to run through your take-off sequence. If there's anything wrong, I'll have you fixed as good as new. You don't have to worry about anything at all."

"Okay," mumbled Starscream. "I trust you."

Bumblebee couldn't actually lift Starscream's leg—there wasn't even any sensation when their plating touched. But Starscream was watching his hands, and he moved his leg to where Bumblebee wanted it. Bumblebee made a show of examining first one thruster and then the other, making little soothing noises when Starscream trembled.

He wished he had a real body. He wished he could push and pull Starscream at will, run his finger around the rim of Starscream's thruster and press a kiss to Starscream's knee. It would help the illusion, wouldn't it?

"Everything looks fine," said Bumblebee. 

Starscream relaxed with a hiss of air and a clatter of plating, his seams gaping wide. Bumblebee forgot his next line, transfixed by a glimpse of Starscream's wiring.

"Uhh," he said, cleverly. "I. Um."

Was he allowed to find Starscream sexy? They _were_ playing out a porn scene. But it was a fragged-up porn scene, not Bumblebee’s kink at all. He wasn’t into factory stuff, he was into big mechs with their plating cracked open, their sensitive interiors on display and ready to be fondled—

"Take-off sequence," hissed Starscream.

"Your take-off sequence!" said Bumblebee. "We gotta test your take-off sequence. Yeah. Open your access panel for me, sweetspark."

Starscream put his hand on his side access panel, but he didn't actually open it. His plating was tightening again.

"What's wrong, darling?" asked Bumblebee.

Starscream shook his head, but Bumblebee leaned in and murmured reassurance until Starscream finally looked at the floor and muttered: "hurts."

"Oh, honey, it shouldn't hurt. Has someone been trying to get in your access panel without the right permissions?"

Starscream clammed up hard at that, and Bumblebee sighed. He'd agreed at the start that he wouldn't pry at a part of the scene if Starscream didn't want him to, and this was one of the elements that Starscream had declared off limits. But a good supervisor _would_ ask, wouldn’t he?

Well. He wasn’t playing a good supervisor. Just Starscream’s fantasy of one.

"We'll talk about it later, if you want," said Bumblebee, as a compromise. "But I promise it won't hurt. You can trust me, remember?"

Starscream slowly moved his hand, and his access panel clicked open. Bumblebee opened his panel too, extended the ghost of a jack.

There was a moment when he actually thought that he would _feel_ something—that there had to be at least a little data transmission across whatever void separated him from the living. But when he plugged the jack in there was nothing, not even the click of a latch securing it in place. Bumblebee had to hold his cable steady to even preserve the illusion that he was penetrating Starscream’s socket.

Starscream's vents had picked up, but after a moment they began to slow and his plating flexed open again to show off that gorgeous, intricate wiring. He even peeked over at Bumblebee, his wide luminous optics lingering on Bumblebee's exposed cable.

"Hey, rust-stick," said Bumblebee, affectionately. "I told you it wouldn't hurt."

"Uhuh," said Starscream. He tentatively raised a hand, then ran a claw around his port where Bumblebee's jack supposedly fit inside.

"You want to feel good?" asked Bumblebee. "I can make you feel good."

"You're supposed to run the take-off sequence." Starscream bit his lip. "I don't—"

"I'll do it after." Bumblebee winked. "Come on, let me treat my favorite seeker."

"Favorite?" squeaked Starscream. "Me?"

"You're the cutest and the smartest little jet I've ever seen." Bumblebee stroked a useless hand over Starscream's cheek. "You deserve to feel good."

"Oh." Starscream leaned into the touch-that-wasn't. "Okay."

Starscream scrabbled on the floor behind him, trying to find the false jack he'd set there before they started. It was odd, watching him plug it in where Bumblebee's jack already was. Imagining the power surge that Bumblebee couldn't feel. Watching Starscream moan and try to cling to Bumblebee even as his hands fell through Bumblebee's shoulders.

"That's it," said Bumblebee, something indefinable coiling tight in his chest. "That's my good jet."

\---

"Rust-stick," said Starscream, afterward, when the aftershocks had finally died away and he was lying sprawled and indulgent on the floor. " _Rust-stick_."

"You didn't mind 'honey,'" said Bumblebee. "It's the same thing."

Starscream hummed. His access panel was still open, and one talon was circling his empty socket. Bumblebee _wished_ again.

Silly. He should know that wishing didn't make things happen.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" asked Starscream, a sudden edge lurking in his voice.

"Just thinking," said Bumblebee.

"Well, don't," snapped Starscream. He pulled his hand away, and his access panel clamped shut. "Whatever you think you know about me, you don't. None of it was real. This was just a game I _indulged_ you in since you were so desperate to play supervisor."

" _I_ was desperate?" said Bumblebee, before he caught himself. It wouldn't do any good to let Starscream bait him into a fight when he was obviously feeling defensive. "Fine, I get it. I know it probably wasn't _nice_ , coming online in a factory."

"It was fine," said Starscream. He sat up, his wings flicking down against his back. "Nobody _hurt_ me. Nobody cared about me at all."

"Nobody hurt you?" repeated Bumblebee because, yes, he'd promised he wouldn't pry during the scene. But the scene was over and the question was burning at him.

Starscream seemed to have forgotten that it was off-limits, anyway. He just picked at a seam and worked his mouth until he said, "not then."

Bumblebee wanted to hold Starscream, wanted to coax him into a soft berth and stroke his back. This was the intimacy of haunted and haunter, he supposed. He wouldn't mind it so much if he could actually _do_ any of those things.

"Sometimes I wish something bad had happened at the factory," said Starscream, almost idly. "When I was defenseless and new and hungry for any kind of attention. Not later, when I should've known better. When I should've been able to protect myself."

"Hey, no," said Bumblebee. He gave into temptation and curled himself around Starscream, pretending that he could feel some of the warmth from Starscream's engine. "No. There's never a good time for something bad to happen. You deserve good things, sweetspark."

Starscream tried to shake him off, but his shoulders and wings just went through Bumblebee's chest. "The game's _over_ ," he hissed.

"I know," said Bumblebee. "I still mean it."

They sat there for a while. Bumblebee ignored the hitch in Starscream's vents, and Starscream didn't say anything about Bumblebee rubbing at his face.

"My knees hurt," said Starscream, at last. "I wasn’t built for the floor. I'm going to my berth." He hesitated, and then said quickly, "you can come. If you want."

"Yeah," said Bumblebee. "Yeah, I'd like that."

They couldn’t touch. But they laid overlapped in the berth, and the sound of Starscream’s engine was loud enough to hide the unnatural silence of Bumblebee’s frame.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic, please let me know! You can also share it on [DW](https://neveralarch.dreamwidth.org/108933.html), [Tumblr](https://neveralarch.tumblr.com/post/625184952648105984/constructed-hot), or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/neveralarch/status/1289280084835262465) :)


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